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"I thought your old man lived in Kansas City," says Carey.

"He does when he’s home," says Ike.

"But now," says Carey, "I s’pose he’s went to Idaho so as he can be near your sick uncle in Nebraska. "

"He’s visitin’ my other uncle in Idaho. "

"Then how does he keep posted about your sick uncle?" ast Carey.

"He don’t," says Ike. "He don’t even know my other uncle’s sick. That’s why I ought to wire and tell him. "

"Good night!" says Carey.

"What town in Idaho is your old man at?" I says.

Ike thought it over.

"No town at all," he says. "But he’s near a town. "

"Near what town?" I says.

"Yuma," says Ike.

Well, by this time he’d lost two or three pots and he was desperate. We was playin’ just as fast as we could, because we seen we couldn’t hold him much longer. But he was tryin’ so hard to frame an escape that he couldn’t pay no attention to the cards, and it looked like we’d get his whole pile away from him if we could make him stick.

The telephone saved him. The minute it begun to ring, five of us jumped for it. But Ike was there first.

"Yes," he says, answerin’ it. "This is him. I’ll come right down. "

And he slammed up the receiver and beat it out o’ the door without even sayin’ good-by.

"Smitty’d ought to locked the door," says Carey.

"What did he win?" ast Carey.

We figured it up—sixty-odd bucks.

"And the next time we ask him to play," says Carey, "his fingers will be so stiff he can’t hold the cards. "

Well, we set round a wile talkin’ it over, and pretty soon the telephone rung again. Smitty answered it. It was a friend of his’n from Hamilton and he wanted to know why Smitty didn’t hurry down. He was the one that had called before and Ike had told him he was Smitty.

"Ike’d ought to split with Smitty’s friend," says Carey.

"No," I says, "he’ll need all he won. It costs money to buy collars and to send telegrams from Cincinnati to your old man in Texas and keep him posted on the health o’ your uncle in Cedar Rapids, D. C. "

III

And you ought to heard him out there on that field!They wasn’t a day when he didn’t pull six or seven, and it didn’t make no difference whether he was goin’ good or bad. If he popped up in the pinch he should of made a base hit and the reason he didn’t was so-and-so. And if he cracked one for three bases he ought to had a home run, only the ball wasn’t lively, or the wind brought it back, or he tripped on a lump o’ dirt, roundin’ first base.

They was one afternoon in New York when he beat all records. Big Marquard was workin’ against us and he was good.

In the first innin’ Ike hit one clear over that right field stand, but it was a few feet foul. Then he got another foul and then the count come to two and two. Then Rube slipped one acrost on him and he was called out.

"What do you know about that!" he says afterward on the bench. "I lost count. I thought it was three and one, and I took a strike. "

"You took a strike all right," says Carey. "Even the umps knowed it was a strike. "

"Yes," says Ike, "but you can bet I wouldn’t of took it if I’d knew it was the third one. The score board had it wrong. "

"That score board ain’t for you to look at," says Cap. "It’s for you to hit that old pill against. "